


Asunder

by absentminded_artist



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Canon, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29830365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absentminded_artist/pseuds/absentminded_artist
Summary: After Randall's death, Giles returns to the Watcher's Council and Ethan is left alone to wrestle with the emptiness left behind and the pull towards chaos that has always beckoned him from the emptiness.Or how they fall apart and together again in various ways.
Relationships: Rupert Giles & Ethan Rayne, Rupert Giles/Ethan Rayne
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Asunder

Ethan Rayne was drunk.

Ethan Rayne was quite drunk. 

Ethan Rayne was quite drunk with every intention of getting even more drunk before the sun set. With several hours to go before even the first hint of dusk and quite a bit of booze in the flat to choose from, that goal seemed very well achievable. 

He’d started drinking right after the door to their, now his, flat had clicked shut behind Rupert and Ethan had been left standing alone, horribly alone, in the ruins of his life. He’d felt a hole growing in the pit of his stomach as he stood in near silence, listening to the ambient noise of the building, the street below, and the rush of his own blood in his ears. Unable to even consider eating, he’d grabbed the first bottle of alcohol he’d found and made his way back to their, now his, bed, thrown himself onto the still-disarrayed blankets, and started in on his half-formed plan to drink himself unconscious.

Gods, he must look pathetic. Lying in a now-empty bed in a now-empty flat getting wasted alone on a very good bottle of scotch. He didn’t even much like whisky. It was always Ripper’s drink. But the man had left this bottle, and all other alcohol, behind when he'd left, so Ethan would be damned if he wasn’t going to polish it off. Out of spite or heartbreak or some twisted desire to be as close to him as he could, he didn’t know. At the moment, he didn’t care.

He was almost glad that his friends had all seemed to have entered similar self-imposed isolation. No one would try and come check on him. He didn’t think he could bear to see them with Ripper gone now too. After Randall’s funeral, no one had seemed able to speak to one another. Everyone was so wrapped up in their own grief and guilt, barely able to make eye contact. He’d felt himself losing them as they all walked away from the cemetery. But at least he had still had Ripper. Or so he’d thought. And even that hadn’t lasted 24 hours after Randall, what was left of him anyway, was in the ground. 

When they had made it back to the small flat they shared, they’d been solemn and shaken but at least, Ethan had thought, that small corner of the world had still been intact. That small corner of the world was still clean. Not clean in the sense that the dishes were washed or the cigarette butts were emptied from the dustbin, but clean in that it was as it ever was. He’d still had Ripper and it was going to be okay. It would hurt like hell but they’d make it through. He’d clung to Rupert that night. With more sentiment than either had shown since before they’d first called Eyghon into them. Ethan had been trying to ground himself in the world again. He knew now that Rupert had been trying to say goodbye. 

His clean safe harbor had crumbled by the next morning. 

He’d woken to his lover already awake staring blankly up a the ceiling, not moving save for the rise and fall of his chest. His face barely showed any expression as he told Ethan that he was going back to the Watcher’s Council. To his “destiny” as he called it. And that had been that.

He hauled himself to his feet, the sounds of hunger now insistent enough to be heard over the deafening scream of his own melancholy. Not willing to entirely abandon alcohol for food, he took the bottle of scotch with him to the kitchen and set it on a chair while he rummaged through the poorly stocked cupboards for something to eat. Even they held whispers of Ripper’s former presence here. The tin of those odd biscuits he liked on the counter, the milk for his tea in the fridge. The jars of loose tea leaves he insisted were superior to bags. Ethan didn’t drink milk and preferred coffee over tea. He grabbed the bottle of milk and upended it into the sink, watching as it swirled down the drain and trying not to feel like it was a metaphor. He left the biscuit tin where it was. On what felt like autopilot, he made toast and fried himself two eggs. He ate standing at the counter, not wanting to sit at the small table and feel the emptiness of the other chair. When he was done he dumped the plate into the sink unceremoniously, grabbed the now half-empty bottle of scotch, and made his way back to the bed.

The sun was starting to set now, and Ethan had changed into one of Ripper’s shirts. He knew it probably made his already pathetic spiral even more pointedly pathetic but he was far beyond the point of giving a shit. He’d stolen it out of the suitcase while Rupert's back was turned. He'd been packing and talking again about penance and duty and Randall and why it was he had to leave and return to that god-awful council of tweed-clad prats and Ethan had yelled and argued and pleaded and stolen things. It wasn’t like the shirt would even fit into Rupert’s tweed-colored future anyway. No more than he now could. 

He didn’t know which would be worse. That Rupert would realize things were missing and try and contact him to get them back, or that he would not care enough to think it worth his trouble anymore. After everything they’d shared he’d now been reduced to either an inconvenient memory or simply an inconvenience. A jagged piece that no longer fit in his lover’s life. Rupert, his Ripper, had been the first person to make him feel like he was worth something. Like he was powerful, desirable, good for something beyond a hand job behind a school building when no one was looking and a black eye when they were. Ripper had made him feel special and he’d given himself over completely. 

Ethan Rayne had only ever loved two things in his life, and now one of them had just walked away from him. Thrown his love back in his face like it was nothing. Chosen duty over him. Magic, the endless pull of chaos, the whirling of a universe on the brink of madness, was the only thing he had left to cling to. Janus, his god, standing like a beacon in the storm that was his life. He’d been ripped apart, torn asunder in ways he could not even begin to put words to. Every part of him ached. He wanted to scream. To cry. To mourn his dead friend and the loss of Ripper to whatever soul-sucking life he had now condemned himself to. He turned onto his side and stared at the double-faced bust of Janus that sat on his windowsill. Some beacon. Some god. What good was a god of doorways when your whole world could walk out one and close the door behind him? 

He closed his eyes and finally let the tears come as the sunset burned red outside his window.

Ethan Rayne was drunk. 

And he wanted to drink until he couldn’t remember pain.


End file.
